Drug-related violence rising in Mexico

Published: Monday, December 01, 2008

Mexico is caught in a rising wave of violence as drug gangs battle for territory. Before dawn one day last week, seven bodies were dumped at a school soccer field in the border city of Juarez. Neighbors in an upscale neighborhood found the bodies lined up along the field’s fence, along with three banners allegedly signed by a Mexican drug gang. The victims had been shot, beaten and choked, their deaths the latest among hundreds of gruesome killings in Ciudad Juarez.

TAKE YOUR SEAT ON SCHOOL BUS, OR ELSE — An Ambridge, Pa., school bus driver endangered a 10-year-old pupil by intentionally braking suddenly so the boy would fall down. The driver, who was upset because the boy wouldn’t remain in his seat while the bus was moving, warned, “If you do it again, I’ll knock you down.” When the fourth-grader switched seats again, the bus driver hit the brakes. The boy was knocked to the floor out of view of a surveillance camera, but is seen getting up. An adult monitor was on the bus, but didn’t intervene. School officials are reviewing the incident.

THIS WEEK’S EXAMPLE OF FELONY STUPIDITY — A Leavenworth, Kan., thief who tried to bust open an ATM like a giant piggy bank is lucky to be in one piece himself. The 49-year-old man pried an ATM loose from a credit union by using a stolen front-end loader. In a bid to break open the 3,000-pound cash machine, he used the heavy-equipment loader to drop the ATM down a 50-foot wooded embankment. But when the ATM fell, the loader and the thief plummeted right along with it.